I never got that into the Dragon Age games — after BioWare blasted off to space with Mass Effect, a return to a somewhat generic fantasy setting didn’t entice me that much. That said, I may have to give the series another chance, because the latest trailer for Dragon Age: Inquisition is here, and the game is looking pretty amazing. At times almost photo-realistic.

You can check out the trailer below (which BioWare claims is all in-game footage)…

Beyond just looking good, it sounds like the game is bringing some interesting gameplay ideas to the table too. Here’s a quote from a Dragon Age: Inquisition producer…

“The world’s population is based on an emergent system that adjusts what you’ll encounter based on how your actions tip the balance in the area. You’ll see towns attacked by bandits, deer fleeing from wolves, giant’s feeding on bears, and countless other scenarios.”

If I can actually effect and change the world in a somewhat significant way through my actions I’m totally on board. By the by, here’s the Dragon Age: Inquisition E3 trailer, which I don’t believe we’ve ever posted…

The first was great from a story and gameplay perspective. Challenging team/ turn-based combat, plenty of story choices and endings, though rather bland-looking for the time.

The second looked pretty, and had a fun fighting style, but that’s about it. The most frustrating part was that the game made you believe the choices were making throughout the game had an effect on the ending. Alas, it boiled down to an end-game choice of ‘side with these people, or these other ones’. Playing through the game a second time to find that out was such a kick in the balls.

You played it a second time? I give you credit. Going into the exact same cave system 5 times per game was enough to kill it for me.

It was a good game but a terrible dragon age game. Now this one is supposed to be “an open world game inspired by skyrim”. Why do they have to do this? Why cant they just see what made the original dragon age so good and build on that. Not change the formula. If you want to make an open world game like skyrim, start a new franchise. Why not give the players what they want with the existing one?

The rush job concerning the very limited number of maps and their constant reuse was definitely the most glaring problem with DAII. However, I thought the story, characters, and combat system were well done. Although there were a lot of times the game presented choices that actually weren’t as a previous commenter noted, this is a common trait with other BioWare titles such as Mass Effect, Jade Empire and KOTOR. Sometimes this is maddening in DAII (spoilers for a three year old game follow) such as the grim fate concerning Hawke’s mother. It’s something I saw coming and was almost shouting at the screen at Hawke’s incompetence and more importantly my inability to correct it with the game’s choices. As a counterpoint, some choices did actually matter and you could do some pretty awful things. Youtube footage of betraying Isabela to the Arishok for a great example.

The trailer does look pretty, but what I’m far more interested in than pixels is whether this game will be good like DA:O or garbage like DA2. From the off-camera gameplay vid I saw taken from some expo, it looks like they’re still trying to straddle the line between action RPG and tactical RPG, like they did in DA2, which does not instill confidence in me. They need to either go back to more tactical combat like DA:O (even further on the tactical scale would be even better) or go the full Shepard. I’m not down for another hybrid-ish combat system.